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War of the Rebellion: Serial 127 Page 1165 CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES.

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After laying down the position that the citizens of a State are not her militia, and affirming that the militia are a body organized by law, you deny that the militia constitute any part of the land or naval forces and say they are distinguished from the land and naval forced; and you further say they have always been called forth as bodies organized by the States with their officers; that they do not become part of the armies raised by Congress, but remain militia; and that when they had been called forth and the exigencies which provoked the call had passed, they went home again. The militia when called forth are taken from the body of the people to meet an emergency or to repel invasion. If they go in as bodied organized by the States, you hold that they go in militia, remain militia, and when the exigency is passed they go home militia; but if you call forth the same men by the conscription act for the same purpose and they remain for the same length of time and do the same service they are not militia, but the armies of the Confederacy, part of the land or naval force. In connection with this part of the subject you use the following language:

At the present moment, when our very existence is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers to ours, the necessity for defense has induced a call, not for the whole militia of all the States, not for any militia, but for men to compose armies for the Confederate States.

In the midst of such pressing danger why was it that there was no necessity for any militia? In other words, no necessity for any bodies of men organized by the States, as were many of the most gallant field a name in history and laurels that can never fade. Were no more such bodies organized by the States needed because the material remaining within the States of which they must be composed was not reliable? The conscription act gives y material. Was it because the officers appointed by the States to command the gallant State regiments and other organized bodies sent by the States were less brave or less skillful than the officers appointed by the President to command similar organized bodies? The officers appointed by the States who now command regiments in the service will not fear to have impartial history answer this question. Was it because you wished select men for the armies of the Confederacy? The conscription act embraces all without distinction between eighteen and thirty-five able to do military duty and not legally exempt. You do not take the militia. What do you take? You take every man between certain ages of whom the militia is composed. What is the difference between taking the militia is composed. What is the difference between taking the militia and taking all the men who compose the militia? Simply this: In one case you take them with their officers appointed by the States as the Constitution requires, and call them by their proper name, militia, employed in the service of the Confederate States; in the other case you take them all as individuals, get rid of the State officers, appoint officers of your own choice, and call them the armies of the Confederacy. And yet these armies, like you say the militia do, will go home when the exigency has passed, as it is hoped they are not expected to be permanent like the regular armies of the Confederacy, or, in other words, like the land and naval forces provided for in the Constitution, from which you distinguish the militia. Indeed, the similarity between these armies of the Confederacy called forth in an emergency to repel an invasion, to be disbanded when the emergency is passed, and the militia or bodies of troops organized and officered by the States, called forth for the same purpose, to be composed of the same material, and disbanded at the